


Phoenix Knight

by DragonSlayerEmpress



Series: Phoenix Knight [1]
Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26768902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSlayerEmpress/pseuds/DragonSlayerEmpress
Summary: Meet Skulduggery Pleasant:wise-cracking detective, powerful magician, sworn enemy of evil.Oh yes. And dead.This my story, I am the older twin sister of Valkyrie Cain. I was there when Skulduggery saved us, this is our adventure.(I'm not so good at writing summaries...)
Series: Phoenix Knight [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951297
Kudos: 1





	1. Stephanie And Azula

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't really written anything in a couple of years, so I hope you all enjoy it. This story is also on Quotev, updates will probably be sporadic. Skulduggery Pleasant doesn't belong to me.

Third-person Pov

Gordon Edgley's sudden death came as a shock to everyone - not least himself. One moment he was in his study, seven words into the twenty-fifth sentence of the final chapter of his new book And The Darkness Rained Upon Them, and the next he was dead. A tragic loss, his mind echoed numbly as he slipped away.  
The funeral was attended by family and acquaintances but not many friends, Gordon hadn't been a well-liked figure in the publishing world, for although the books he wrote - tales of horror and magic and wonder - regularly reared their heads in the best-seller lists, he had the disquieting habit of insulting people without realising it, then laughing at their shock. It was at Gordon's funeral, however, that twin sisters Azula and Stephanie Edgley first caught sight of the gentlemen in the tan overcoat.  
He was standing under the shade of a large tree, away from the crowd, the coat buttoned up all the way despite the warmth of the afternoon. A scarf was wrapped around the lower half of his face and even from their position on the far side of the grave, they could make out the wild and frizzy hair that escaped from the wide-brimmed hat he wore low over his gigantic sunglasses. They watched him intrigued by his appearance. And then, like he knew he was being observed, he turned and walked back through the rows of headstones, and disappeared from sight.

After the Service, Azula and Stephanie and their parents travelled back to their dead uncle's house, over a humpbacked bridge and along a narrow road that carved its way through thick woodland. The gates were heavy and grand and stood open, welcoming them into the estate. The grounds were vast and the old house itself was ridiculously big.  
There was an extra door in the living room, a door disguised as a bookcase, and when Azula was younger she liked to think that no one else knew about this door, not even Gordon himself. It was a secret passageway, like in the stories she'd read, and she'd make up adventures about haunted houses and smuggled treasure. This secret passageway would always be her escape route, and the imaginary villains in these adventures would always be dumbfounded by her sudden and mysterious disappearance. But now this door, this secret passageway, stood open, and there was a steady stream of people through it, and she was saddened that this little piece of magic had been taken from her.

Tea was served and drinks were poured and little sandwiches were passed around on silver trays, and Stephanie and Azula watched the mourners casually appraise their surroundings. The major topic of hushed conversation was the will. Gordon wasn't a man who inspired, or even demonstrated, any great affection, so no one could predict who would inherit his substantial fortune. The twins could see the greed seep into the watery eyes of her father's older brother, a horrible little man called Fergus, as he nodded sadly and spoke sombrely and pocketed silverware when he thought no one was looking.

Fergus's wife was a thoroughly dis-likeable, sharp-featured woman named Beryl. She drifted through the crowd, deep in unconvincing grief, prying for gossip and digging for scandal. Her daughters did their best to ignore Azula and Stephanie. Carol and Crystal were also twins, fifteen years old, and as sour and vindictive as their parents. Whereas Stephanie was dark-haired and Azula had bright red hair, they were tall, slim and strong, their cousins were bottle-blonde, stumpy and dressed in clothes that made them bulge in all the wrong places. Apart from their brown eyes, no one would guess that they were related. They liked that. It was the one thing about them that Stephanie and Azula like about them. They left them to their petty glares and snide whispers and went for a walk together.  
The corridors of their uncle's house were long and lined with paintings. The floor beneath their feet was wooden, polished to a gleam, and the house smelled of age. Not musty exactly but... experienced. These walls and these floors had seen a lot in their time, and Stephanie and Azula were nothing but a faint whisper to them. Here one instant and gone the next.

Gordon had been a good uncle. Arrogant and irresponsible, yes, but also childish and enormous fun, with a light in his eyes, a glint of mischief. When everyone else was taking him seriously, Stephanie and Azula were privy to the winks and the nods and the half-smiles that he would shoot their way when everyone else wasn't looking. Even as children the twins felt they understood him better than most. Azula liked his intelligence and wit, the way he didn't care what people thought of him. He'd been a good uncle to have. He'd taught them a lot.

Stephanie and Azula knew that her mother and Gordon had briefly dated ("courted", as their mother had called it), but when Gordon had introduced her to his younger brother, it was love at first sight. Gordon liked to grumble that he had never got more than a peck on the cheek, but had stepped aside graciously, and had quite happily gone on to have numerous torrid affairs with numerous beautiful women. He used to say that it had almost been a fair trade, but that he suspected he had lost out.  
Together they climbed the staircase, pushed open the door to Gordon's study and stepped inside. The walls were filled with the framed covers from his best-sellers and shared space with all manner of awards. One entire wall was made up of shelves, jammed with books. There were biographies and historical novels and science texts and psychology tomes, and there were battered little paperbacks stuck in between. A lower shelf had magazines, literary reviews and quarterlies.  
Stephanie passed shelves which housed the first editions of Gordon's novels, while Azula approached the desk. They looked at the chair where he'd died, trying to imagine him there, how he must have slumped. And then, a voice so smooth it could have been made of velvet:

"At least he died doing what he loved."  
They turned, surprised, to see the man from the funeral in the overcoat and hat standing in the doorway. The scarf was still wrapped, the sunglasses still on, the fuzzy hair still poking out. His hands were gloved.  
"Yes," Stephanie said because she couldn't think of anything else to say. "At least there's that."  
"You're both his nieces then?" the man asked. "You're not stealing anything, you're not breaking anything, so I'd guess that your Stephanie and Azula." They nodded and took the opportunity to look at him more closely. They couldn't even see the tiniest bit of his face beneath the scarf and sunglasses.  
"Were you a friend of his?" Azula asked, speaking for the first time. He was tall, this man, tall and thin, though his coat made it difficult to judge.  
"I was." He answered with a movement of his head. This slight movement made the twins realise that the rest of his body was unnaturally still. "I've known him for years, met him outside a bar in New York when I was over there when he had just published his first novel"

Stephanie and Azula couldn't see anything behind his sunglasses - they were as black as pitch. "Are you a writer too?"  
"Me? No, I wouldn't know where to start. But I got to live out my writer fantasies through Gordon"   
"You had writer fantasies?"   
"Doesn't everyone?"  
"I don't know. I don't think so"  
"Oh. That would make me seem kind of odd, would it?"   
"Well." Azula said, "It would help."   
"Gordon used to talk about the two of you all the time, boast about his little niece's. He was an individual of character, your uncle. It seems you both are too"   
"You say that like you know us"  
"Strong-willed, intelligent, sharp-tongued, doesn't suffer fools gladly... remind you of anything?"  
"Yes, Gordon." Stephanie and Azula spoke at the same time.  
"Interesting." Said the man "Because those are the exact words he used to describe the both of you." His gloved fingers dipped into a waistcoat and brought out an ornate pocket watch on a delicate gold chain.  
"Good luck with whatever you decide to do with your life."  
"Thank you," Stephanie said, a little dumbly. "You too." 

They felt the man smile, though they could see no mouth, and he turned from the doorway and left them there. Stephanie and Azula found they couldn't take their eyes off where he had been. Who was he? They hadn't even got his name.  
The twins shared a looked before they crossed to the door and stepped out, wondering how he had vanished from sight so quickly. They hurried down the stairs and reached the large hall without seeing him. Azula opened the front door just as a big black car turned onto the road. They watched him drive away, stayed there for a few moments, then reluctantly joined their extended family in the living room, just in time to see Fergus slip a silver ashtray into his breast pocket


	2. The Will

Third-person pov   
  
Life in the Edgley household was fairly uneventful. Stephanie and Azula's mother worked in a bank and their father owned a construction company, and Stephanie and Azula were the only children, so the routine they had settled into was one of amiable convenience. But even so, there was always the voice in the back of their minds telling them that there should be more to their lives than  **_this_ ** , more to their lives than the small coastal town of Haggard. They just couldn't figure out what that something was.   
  
The twins first year of secondary school had just come to a close and they were looking forward to the summer break. Stephanie didn't like school, while Azula hated it. They found it difficult to get along with their classmates - not because they weren't nice people, but simply because they had little or nothing in common with them. And they both didn't like teachers. They didn't like the way they demanded respect they hadn't earned. Stephanie and Azula had absolutely no problem doing what they were told, just as long as they were given a good enough reason why they should.   
  
Stephanie and Azula spent the first few days of summer helping out their father, answering phones and sorting through the files in his office. Gladys, his secretary of seven years, had decided she'd had enough of the construction business and wanted to try her hand as a performance artist. They found it vaguely discomforting whenever they passed her on the street, this forty-three-year-old woman doing a modern dance interpretation of Faust. Gladys had made herself a costume to go with the act, a costume, she said, that symbolised the internal struggles Faust was going through, and apparently, she refused to be seen in public without it. Stephanie and Azula did their best to avoid catching Gladys's eye.

If Stephanie or Azula weren't helping out in the office, they were either down at the beach, swimming, or locked in their room listening to music. Stephanie was trying to find her phone charger, while Azula was laying on her bed reading when their mother knocked on the door and stepped in. She was still dressed in the sombre clothes she had worn to the funeral, though Stephanie and Azula and tied back their long hair and changed into their usual jeans and trainers within in two minutes of returning to the house.   
"We got a call from Gordon's solicitor," Their mother said sounding a little surprised. "They want us at the reading of the will"   
"Oh," Stephanie responded, "What do you think he left you?"    
"Well, we'll find out tomorrow. You two as well, because your both coming with us"   
"We are?" Azula said with a slight frown.   
"Your names are on the list, that's all I know. We're leaving at ten, Ok?"   
"But Steph's supposed to be helping dad in the morning"   
"He called Gladys, asked her to fill in for a few hours, as a favour. She said yes, as long as she could wear the peanut suit."    
  
They left for the solicitor's at a quarter past ten the next morning, fifteen minutes later than planned thanks to the twin’s father's disregard for punctuality. He ambled through the house, looking like there was something he'd forgotten and was just waiting for it to occur to him again. He nodded and smiled whenever his wife told him to hurry up, said "Yes absolutely," and just before he was about to join them in the car, he meandered off again, looking around with a dazed expression.   
"He does this on purpose," Stephanie and Azula's mother said as they sat in the car, seatbelts on and ready to go. They watched him appear at the front door, shrug into his jacket, tuck in his shirt, go to step out, then pause.   
"He looks like he's about to sneeze," Stephanie remarked and Azula laughed.   
"No" Their mother responded, "He's just thinking." She stuck her head out the window. "Desmond, what's wrong now?"   
He looked up puzzled. "I think I’m forgetting something."    
  
Stephanie leaned forward in the back seat, took a look at him and spoke to their mother, who nodded and stuck her head out again. "Where are your shoes, dear?"    
He looked down at his socks - one brown, one navy - his clouded expression cleared. He gave them a thumbs up and disappeared from view.   
"That man," their mother said, shaking her head. "Did you know he once lost a shopping centre?"   
"He what?"   
"I never told you two that? It was the first big contract he got. His company did a wonderful job and he was driving his clients to see it, and he forgot where he put it. He drove around for almost an hour before he saw something he recognised. He may be a very talented engineer, but I swear he's got the attention span of a goldfish. So unlike Gordon."    
"They weren't very alike, were they?"    
Their mother smiled. "It wasn't always that way. They used to do everything together. The three of them were inseparable."    
What, even Fergus?"   
"Even Fergus. But when your grandmother died they all drifted apart. Gordon started mixing with a strange crowd after that."   
"Strange in what way?"    
"Ah, they probably just appeared strange to us," Their mother said with a small laugh. "Your dad was getting started in the construction business and I was in college and we were what you might call normal. Gordon resisted being normal, and his friends, they kind of scared us. We never knew what they were into, but it wasn't anything..."    
" **_Normal_ ** "   
"Exactly. They scared your dad most of all though."   
"Why?"   
  
Stephanie and Azula's father walked out of the house, shoes on, and closed the front door after him.   
"I think he was more like Gordon than he liked to let on," Their mother said quietly, and then their dad got into the car.   
"Ok," He said proudly. "I'm ready"   
  
They looked at him as he nodded, chuffed with himself. He strapped on his seatbelt and turned the key. The engine purred to life. Azula waved to Jasper, an eight-year-old with unfortunate ears, as her dad backed out on to the road, put the car in gear and they were off, narrowly missing their wheelie bin as they went.   
  
The drive to the solicitor’s office in the city took little under an hour and they arrived 20 minutes late. They were led up a flight of creaky stairs to a small office, too warm to be comfortable, with a large window that offered a wonderful view of the brick wall across the seat. Fergus and Beryl were there, and they showed their displeasure at having been kept waiting by looking at their watches and scowling. Stephanie and Azula's parents took the remaining chairs and Stephanie and Azula stood behind them as the solicitor peered at them though cracked spectacles.   
"Now can we get started?" Beryl snapped. The solicitor, a short man named Mr Fedgewick, with the girth and appearance of a sweaty bowling ball, tried smiling.   
"We still have one person to wait on," He said and Fergus's eyes bulged.   
"Who?" He demanded. "There can't be anyone else, we are the only siblings Gordon had. Who is it? It's not some charity, is it? I've never trusted charities. They always want something from you"   
"It's, it's not a charity," Mr Fedgewick said. "He did say, however, that he may be a little late."   
"Who said?" Azula and Stephanie's father asked, and the solicitor looked down at the open file before him.   
"A most unusual name, this," He said. "It seems we are waiting on one Mr Skulduggery Pleasant."   
"Well who on earth is that?" asked Beryl, irritated. "He sounds like a, he sounds like a... Fergus, what does he sound like?"   
"He sounds like a weirdo," Fergus said, glaring at Fedgewick. "He's not a weirdo, is he?"   
"I really couldn't say" Fedgewick answered, the paltry excuse for a smile failing miserably under the glares he was getting from Fergus and Beryl. "But I’m sure he'll be along soon."   
Fergus frowned, narrowing his beady eyes as much as was possible. "How are you sure?"    
Fedgewick faltered, unable to offer a reason, and then the door opened and the man in the tan overcoat entered the room.   
"Sorry I'm late it was unavoidable I’m afraid."   
  
Everyone in the room stared at him, stared at the scarf and the gloves and the sunglasses and the wild fuzzy hair. It was a glorious day outside, certainly not the kind of weather to be wrapped up like this. Stephanie and Azula looked closer at the hair. From this distance, it didn't even seem real.   
The solicitor cleared his throat. "Um, you are Skulduggery Pleasant?"    
"At your service," the man said. Stephanie and Azula could listen to that voice all day. Their mother, uncertain as she was, had smiled her greetings, but their father was looking at him with an expression of wariness they had never seen on his face before. After a moment the expression left him and he nodded politely and looked back to Mr Fedgewick. Fergus and Beryl were still staring.   
"Do you have something wrong with your face?" Beryl asked.   
Fedgewick cleared his throat again. "Ok then, let's get down to business, now that we're all here. Excellent. Good. This, of course, being the last will and testament of Gordon Edgley, revised last almost one year ago. Gordon has been a client of mine for the past twenty years, and in that time, I got to know him well, so let me pass to you, his family and, and friend, my deepest, deepest-"    
"Yes yes yes," Fergus interrupted, waving his hands. "Can we just skip this part? We're already running behind schedule. Let's get to the part where we get stuff. Who gets the house? And who gets the Villa?"    
"Who gets the fortune?" Beryl asked, leaning forward in her seat.   
"The royalties," Fergus said, "Who gets the royalties from the books?"   
Azula glanced at Skulduggery Pleasant from the corner of her eye. He was standing back against the wall, hands in his pockets, looking at the solicitor. Well, he  **_seemed_ ** to be looking at the solicitor; with those sunglasses, he could've been looking anywhere. She returned her gaze back to Fedgewick as he picked up a page from his desk and read from it.   
"'To my brother Fergus and his beautiful wife Beryl,"' He read and Stephanie and Azula did their best to hide their grins, '"I leave my car, a boat and a gift"'   
Fergus and Beryl blinked. "His car?" Fergus said. "His boat? Why would he leave me his boat?"   
"You hate the water," Beryl said, anger rising in her voice. "You get seasick"    
“I  **_do_ ** get seasick" Fergus snapped, "and he knew that!"   
"And we already have a car," Beryl said   
"And we already have a car!" Fergus repeated.   
Beryl was sitting so far up her chair that she was almost on the desk. "The gift," She said, her voice low and threatening, "is it the fortune?"    
Mr Fedgewick coughed nervously, and took a small box from his desk drawer and slid it towards them. They looked at this box. They looked some more. They both reached for it at the same time, and Stephanie and Azula watched them slap at each other's hands until Beryl snatched it off the desk and tore the lid open.   
"What is it?" Fergus asked in a small voice. "Is it a key to a safety deposit box? Is it, is it an account number? Is it, what is it wife, what is it?"    
  
All colour had drained from Beryl's face and her hands were shaking. She blinked hard to keep the tears away, then she turned the box for everyone to see, and everyone saw the brooch, about the size of a drinks coaster, nestled in the plush cushion. Fergus stared at it.   
"It doesn't even have any jewels on it," Beryl said, her voice strangled. Fergus opened his mouth wide like a startled fish and turned to Fedgewick.   
"What else do we get?" He asked, panicking.   
Mr Fedgewick tried another smile. "Your, uh, your brothers love?"    
Stephanie and Azula heard a high-pitched whine, and it took them both a moment to realise it was coming from Beryl. Fedgewick returned his attention to the will, trying to ignore the horrified looks he was getting from Fergus and his wife.   
'"To my good friend and guide Skulduggery Pleasant, I leave the following advice. Your path is your own, and I have no wish to sway you, but sometimes the greatest enemy we can face is ourselves, and our greatest battles is against the darkness within. There is a storm coming, and sometimes the key to a safe harbour is hidden from us, and sometimes it is right before our eyes."'   
Stephanie and Azula joined in with everyone else as they stared at Mr Pleasant. The twins had known there was something different about his, they knew it the first moment they saw him, more Azula than Stephanie - there was something exotic, something mysterious, something  **_dangerous_ ** . For his part, his head dipped lower and that was the only reaction he gave. He offered no explanations as to what Gordon's message had meant.   
Fergus patted his wife's knee. "See, Beryl? A car, a boat, a brooch, it's not that bad. He could have given us some stupid advice"    
"Oh, shut up would you?" Beryl snarled and Fergus recoiled in his chair.   
Mr Fedgewick read on "To my other brother, Desmond the lucky one of the family, I leave to you your wife. I think you might like her"' Stephanie saw her parents clasp each other's hands and smile sadly while Azula smirked. "'So now that you've successfully stolen my girlfriend, maybe you'd like to take her to my villa in France, which I am also leaving to you"'   
"They get the villa?" Beryl cried, jumping to her feet.   
"Beryl" Fergus said, "Please..."    
"Do you know much that Villa is worth?" Beryl continued, looking like she might lunge at the twins’ parents.   
"We get a brooch - they get a villa. There may be four of them, but we have Crystal and Carol, who are both older! We could do with the extra space! Why do  **_they_ ** deserve the villa?" She thrust the box towards them. "Swap!!"   
"Mrs Edgley, please take your seat or we shall be unable to continue," Mr Fedgewick said, and eventually, after much bug-eye glaring, Beryl sat down.   
"Thank you," Mr Fedgewick said, looking like he had had quite enough excitement for one day. He licked his lips, adjusted his glasses, and peered again at the will. '"If there is one thing that I regret in my life, is that I never fathered any children. There are times when I look at what Fergus and Beryl produced and I consider myself fortunate, but there are also times when it breaks my heart. And so, finally, to my nieces Stephanie and Azula"   
Stephanie's eyes widened, while Azula's jaw dropped. What?  **_They_ ** were getting something? Leaving the villa to their parents wasn't enough for Gordon?   
Fedgewick continued reading " The world is bigger than you know and scarier than you might imagine, Azula already knows this. The only currency worth anything is being true to yourself, and the only goal worth seeking is finding out who you truly are'"    
They could feel Fergus and Beryl glaring at them and they did their best to ignore them.    
“Make your parents proud, and make them glad to have you living under their roof, because I leave to the both of you my property and possessions, my assets and royalties, to be inherited on the day you both turn 18. I'd just like to take this opportunity to say that, in my own way, I love you all, even those I don't particularly like, that's you, Beryl”   
Fedgewick took off his spectacles and looked up.    
  
Stephanie and Azula became aware that everyone was staring at them and they didn't have clue what they were supposed to say. Fergus was once again doing his startled fish impression and Beryl was pointing one long bony finger at them, trying to speak, but failing. Their parents were looking at them in stunned surprise. Only Skulduggery Pleasant moved, walking behind them and touching their arms.   
"Congratulations," He said and moved on towards the door. As soon as it clicked shut behind him, Beryl found her voice.   
"THEM?" She screamed. "THEM?"


	3. Little Girls, All Alone

Third-person Pov    
  
That afternoon Stephanie, Azula and their mother took the 15-minute drive from Haggard to Gordon's estate. Their mother opened the front door and stepped back.   
"Owners of the house go first," She said with a bow, and together the twins stepped inside.   
  
Azula Pov    
  
Stephanie and I stepped inside together, probably thinking the same thing. We would never think of this house as our property - the idea was too big, too silly. Even if mum and dad were, technically, the custodians until Steph and I turned 18, how could we own a house? How many other 12-year-old kids owned houses?    
No, it was a silly idea. Too far-fetched. Too crazy. Exactly the kind of thing that Gordon would have thought made perfect sense.   
The house was big and quiet and beautiful, I had to admit. Everything seemed new to me now, and I found myself reacting differently to the carpets and furniture and paintings, I looked over at Steph and saw that she was reacting the same way as I was. Did we like it? Did we agree with this colour and that Fabric? One thing could be said about Gordon though, he had a good eye. Mum said there was little she would change if she had to, and Steph agreed with her, though I wasn't too sure. Some of the paintings were a little too unnerving for her taste maybe, but on the whole, the furnishings were elegant and understated, excluding an air of distinction that befitted a house of this stature.   
No one had decided what we were going to do with the house. Any decision of that was left up to me and Steph, though mostly me as she didn't want too, but mum and dad still had the villa to consider. Owning three houses between them seemed a bit much. Dad had suggested selling the villa, but mum hated the thought of letting go of a place so idyllic. Mum and dad had also talked about our education, and we both knew  **_that_ ** conversation was far from over. The moment everyone had left Mr Fedgewicks office, mum and dad warned us, that this shouldn't go to our heads. Recent events, they had said should not mean that we could stop studying, stop planning for college. We needed to be independent, they said, we need to make it on our own.   
  
Stephanie and I had let them talk, and nodded occasionally and muttered an agreement where an agreement was appropriate. We didn't bother to explain that we needed college, we both needed to find our way in the world, cause we knew if we didn't, we'd never escape Haggard. I mean, come on, we weren't gonna throw our future away simply because we had inherited some money, and besides, I already knew what I was going to do when I left school.   
We spent so long looking around the ground floor that by the time we got to the bottom of the stairs it was already 5 o'clock. With the exploring done for the day, we locked the door and walked to the car.   
"I call shotgun," I said and Stephanie groaned but hopped in the back seat as I hopped in the front. The first drops of rain hit the windscreen as mum got in. Stephanie and I clicked our seatbelts closed and mum turned the key in the ignition.    
The car sputtered a bit, groaned a little then shut up. Mum looked at me and Stephanie.   
"Uh oh." We all got out and opened the bonnet.   
"Well," mum said, looking at the engine, "at least that's still there."   
"Do you know __ **_anything_ ** about engines?" Stephanie asked.   
"That's why  **_I_ ** have a husband, so  **_I_ ** don't have to. Engines and shelves, that's why man was invented." I made a mental note to learn about engines before I turned 18. I wasn't too fussed about the shelves.   
  
Mum dug her mobile phone out of her bag and called dad, but he was busy on-site and couldn't get to us before nightfall. We went back inside the house if you can call it that, it was more of a manor, and mum called a mechanic, and we spent three-quarters of an hour waiting for him to arrive.   
The sky was grey and angry and the rain was falling hard by the time the truck appeared around the corner. It splashed through puddles on its way up the long drive, and mum pulled her jacket over her head and ran out to meet it. I could see a great big dog in the cab of the truck, looking on as the mechanic got out to examine the car. After a few minutes, mum ran back inside, thoroughly drenched.   
"He can't fix it here," she said, wringing out her jacket on the porch, "so he's going to tow it to the garage. It shouldn't take long to fix."    
"Will there be enough room for all three of us in the truck?" Stephanie asked   
"You both can sit on my knee."    
"Mum!"   
"Or I can sit on your knees, whatever works."   
"Can we stay here?" I asked   
Mum looked at me. "On your own?"   
"Please? You said it won't take long, and we'd like to have another look around, just on our own."   
"I don't know Azula..."   
"Please? We've stayed on our own before. We won't break anything, I swear."   
Mum laughed. "OK fine. I shouldn't be any more than an hour alright? An hour and a half at the most." Mum gave us a quick kiss on the cheek. "Call me if you need anything."   
Mum ran back outside and jumped in the cab next to the dog, who proceeded to slobber all over her face. We watched the car being towed off into the distance and then it vanished from sight.    
We did a little more exploring now that we were on our own. We climbed the stairs and headed straight for Gordon's study. His publisher, Seamus T. Steepe of Arc Light Books, had phoned us earlier today, passing on his condolences and inquiring about the state of Gordon's last book, Mum had told them that we'd find out if Gordon had completed it, and if he had, we'd send it on. Mr Steepe was very keen to get the book on the shelves, certain that it would crash on to the best-seller list and stay there for a long time. "Dead writers sell," he had said, like he approved of Gordon's clever marketing ploy. I watched as Stephanie opened the desk drawer and found the manuscript in a neat stack. She pulled it out carefully and laid it on the desktop, careful not to smudge the paper. I walked up behind Steph and put my hand on her shoulder, giving her a sad smile. The first page held the title, nothing more, in bold lettering:    
  
**And The Darkness Rained Upon Them.**   
  
The manuscript was thick and heavy, like all of Gordon's books. We'd read most of them, and the odd splash of pretension aside had quite enjoyed his work. His stories tended to be about people who could do astonishing and wonderful things and the strange and terrible events that invariably led up to their bizarre and horrible deaths. I noticed the way he would set up a strong and noble hero, and over the course of the book systematically subject this hero to brutal punishment in a bid to strip away all his arrogance and certainty so that by the end he was humbled and had learned a great lesson. And then Gordon usually killed him off, in the most undignified way possible. We could almost hear Gordon laughing with mischievous glee as we read.   
  
Stephanie lifted the title page and carefully laid it face down on the desk beside the manuscript. We started reading. We didn't mean to spend too long at it, but soon we were devouring every word, oblivious to the creaking old house and the rain outside. My mobile phone rang, making us jump. We had been reading for two hours. I pressed the answer button and put it on speaker.   
"Hi, girls," came mum's voice, "everything ok?"   
"Yes," I answered, "just reading."   
"You’re not reading one of Gordon's books, are you? Steph, Azula, he writes about horrible monsters and scary stuff and bad people doing worse things. It'll give you both nightmares"   
"No, mum, we're... we're reading the dictionary," Steph said    
Even the silence on the other end of the phone was sceptical. "The dictionary?" mum said. "Really?"    
"Yeah," I said. "Did you know that  **_popple_ ** __ is a word?    
"You are stranger than your father, you know that?"   
"We suspected as much... So is the car fixed yet?"    
"No, and that's why I'm calling. They can't get it going and the road up to you both is flooded. I'm going to get a taxi as far as it'll go and then I'll see if I can find some way around on foot. It's going to be another two hours at least."    
We sensed an opportunity. Ever since we were children we had always preferred our own company to the company of others, and it occurred to me that we had never spent a whole night alone without mum and dad nearby. A small taste of freedom and it almost tingled on my tongue.   
"Mum, it's fine, you don't have to. We're ok here"    
"There's no way I’m not leaving both of you in a strange house by your selves."    
"It's not a strange house; it's Gordon's and it's fine. There's no point in you trying to get here tonight - it's lashing rain." Steph said   
"Sweetie it won't take me long"   
"It'll take you ages. Where's it flooded?"   
Mum paused. "At the bridge."   
"The bridge? And you want to walk from the bridge to here?"   
"If I speed-walk---"   
"Mum, don't be silly. Get Dad to pick you up." I said   
"Sweetheart, are you sure?"    
"We like it here, really. OK?"   
"Well, OK," Mum said reluctantly. "I'll be over first thing in the morning to you both up, all right? And I saw some food in the cupboards, so if you’re hungry you can make yourself something."    
"OK. We'll see you tomorrow then."    
"Call us if you need anything or if you just want some company."    
"We will. Night mum."    
"I love you both."   
"We know"    
I hung up and I grinned at Stephanie and she grinned back. I put my phone back in my jacket and put my feet on the desk, Steph doing the same, relaxing back into our chairs, and went back to reading.   
  
When we looked up again we were surprised to find that it was almost midnight and the rain had stopped. If we were home right now, we'd be in bed. I blinked, our eyes sore, stood up from the desk and walked downstairs to the kitchen. For all his wealth and success and extravagant taste, I was thankful that when it came to food, Gordon was a pretty standard guy. The bread was stale and the fruit was a bit too ripe, but there were biscuits and there was cereal, and the milk in the fridge was good for one more day. Steph made herself and me a snack and we wandered to the living room, where we sat and flicked on the TV, I quickly ate my snack and put my hat on my face, so it covered my eyes. I was just about to fall asleep when the house phone rang. I took my hat off and looked at where it rested on the table at my elbow. Who would be calling? Anyone who knew Gordon had died wouldn't be calling because they'd know he had died, and I didn't really want to tell anyone who didn't know. It could be mum and dad, but then why didn't they call mine or Steph's mobile?    
  
Steph figuring that as one of the new owners of the house, it was her responsibility to answer our phone, Stephanie reached over me, picked it up and held it between us. "Hello?" She asked   
Silence.   
"Hello?" she repeated.   
"Who is this?" Came a man's voice.   
"I'm sorry," I said, "Who do you want to speak to?"   
"Who is this?" Responded the voice, more irritably this time.    
"If you’re looking for Gordon Edgley," I said, "I'm afraid that he's---"   
"I know Edgley's dead," snapped the man. "Who are you? Your names?"   
I hesitated. "Why do you want to know? Stephanie spoke again   
"What are you doing in that house? Why are you in his house?"   
"If you want to call back tomorrow---"   
"I  **_don't_ ** want to, all right? Listen to me girlie's, if you mess up my master's plans, he will be  **_very_ ** displeased and he is  **_not_ ** a man you want to displease, you got that? Now tell me who are both are!"   
  
I saw that Stephanie's hands were shaking, I took a deep breath to calm myself down and found that anger was replacing my nervousness, I saw the anger on Stephanie's face. "Our names are none of your business," She said, "If you want to talk to someone, call back tomorrow at a reasonable hour"   
"You don't talk to me like that," the man hissed.   
"Goodnight" I said firmly.   
"You do  **_not_ ** talk to me like---"   
But I was already put the phone down. Suddenly spending the whole night here wasn't as appealing as it had first sounded. I considered calling mum or dad, then scolded myself for being so childish, I could take care of myself and Steph.  **_No need to worry them,_ ** I thought to myself.  **_No need to worry them about something so---_ **   
Someone pounded on the front door.   
"Open up!" came the man's voice between the pounding. We got to our feet, staring through the hall beyond the living room. I could see a dark shape behind the frosted glass around the front door. "Open the damn door!"   
  
Stephanie backed up to the fireplace, I followed, my heart pounding in my chest. He knew they were in here, there was no use pretending that we weren't, but maybe if we stayed quiet he'd give up and go away, somewhere in the back of my head I knew that it wasn't gonna work. I heard him cursing, and the pounding grew so heavy that the front door rattled under the blows.   
"Leave us alone!" Steph shouted and I cursed at my sister's stupidity at the situation.   
"Open the door!"    
"No!" She shouted back. I groaned as Stephanie seemed to like yelling, then I realized that she was doing it to disguise her fear. "I'm calling the police! I'm calling the police right now!"   
The pounding stopped immediately and I saw the shape move away from the door. Was that it? Had Stephanie scared him away? I thought of the back door -- was it locked? Of course, it was locked... It had to be locked. But I wasn't certain. Stephanie grabbed a poker from the fireplace, while I took up a defensive posture, and was reaching for the phone when we heard a knock on the window beside us. We cried out and jumped back. The curtains were open, and outside the window was pitch-black. I couldn't see a thing.   
"Are you alone in there?" came the voice. It was teasing now, playing with us.   
"Go away," I yelled loudly, Stephanie held up the poker so he could see it. We heard the man laugh.   
"What are you going to do with that?" he asked.   
"I'll break your head open with it!" Stephanie screamed at him, fear and fury easily shown on her face. I groaned as I heard him laugh again.   
"I just want to come in," he said. "Open the door for me girlies. Let me come in."   
"The police are on their way," She said.   
"You’re a liar."   
Still, we could see nothing beyond the glass and he could see everything. Steph moved to the phone, me following behind, snatching it from its cradle.   
"Don't do that," came the voice.   
"I'm calling the police."   
"The road's closed girlie. You call them, I'll break down that door and kill you both hours before they get here"    
  
Fear became terror and I saw Stephanie freeze, she was going to cry, I could see it, we hadn't cried in years. Now, this jerk was going to make my sister cry, I snarled.   
"What do you want?" I asked to the darkness. "Why do you want to come in?"    
"It's got nothing to do with  **_me_ ** girlies. I've just been sent to pick something up. Let me in. I'll look around, get what I came for and leave. I won't harm a pretty little hair on your pretty little heads, I  **_promise._ ** Now you just open that door right this second"    
Stephanie gripped the poker in both hands and we shook our heads. Stephanie was crying now and I was on the verge of crying. "No," We said together.   
We screamed as a fist smashed through the window, showing the carpet with glass. We stumbled back as the man started climbing in, glaring us with blazing eyes, unmindful of the glass that cut into him. The moment one foot touched the floor inside the house. I shoved Stephanie behind me and we bolted out of the room, over to the front door, fumbling with the lock.    
Strong hands grabbed me from behind and threw me across the hall. I watched, dazed as the man grabbed Stephanie and lifted her off her feet and carried her back. Stephanie kicked out, slamming a heel into his shin. I grinned and tried to stand, but I fell back down as the man grunted and Stephanie twisted, trying to swing the poker into his face but he caught it and pulled it from her grasp. One hand went to my sister's throat Stephanie gagged, unable to breathe as the man forced her back into the living room.    
I slowly stood, slightly shaky as the man spoke:    
"Now then," the man said, his mouth contorting into a sneer, "why don't you just give me the key, little girlie's?" his gaze now on me.   
And that's when the front door was flung off its hinges and Skulduggery Pleasant burst into the house.   
  
The man cursed and released Stephanie swung the poker, but Skulduggery moved straight to him and hit him so hard I thought the man's head might come off. I slowly moved towards Stephanie as the man hit the ground and tumbled backwards, but rolled to his feet as Skulduggery moved in again.   
The man launched himself forwards. They both collided and went backwards over the couch and Skulduggery lost his hat. I saw a flash of white above the scarf.   
They got to their feet, grappling, and the man sent a punch that knocked Skulduggery's sunglasses to the other side of the room. Skulduggery responded by moving in low, grabbing the man around the waist and twisting his hip into him. The man was flipped to the floor, hard.    
  
He cursed a little more, then remembered Stephanie and I and made for us. Stephanie leapt out of the chair, I, however, wasn't so lucky. The man grabbed the back of my jacket and pulled me to him. I struggled to get out of his grip, I looked at Stephanie and saw she was about to start crying again. I snarled and stomped on the man's foot and grabbed the man's arm and twisted it so that he let me go. I quickly moved away and back next to Steph, who gave me a hug and buried her face in my shoulder. The man moved towards us again, but Skulduggery was there, kicking the man's legs out from under him. The man hit the coffee table with his chin and howled in pain.   
**_"You think you can stop me?"_ ** he screamed as he tried to stand. He seemed shaky.  **_"Do you know who I am?"_ **   
"Haven't the foggiest," Skulduggery said.   
The man spat blood and grinned defiantly. "Well, I know about  **_you,"_ ** he said. "My master told me all about you, detective, and you’re going to have to do a lot better than that to stop me."   
  
Skulduggery shrugged and Stephanie watched in amazement, while I smirked as a ball of fire flared up in his hand and he hurled it and the man was suddenly covered in flame. But instead of screaming, the man tilted his head back and roared with laughter. The fire may have engulfed him, but it wasn't burning him.   
"More!" he laughed. "Give me more!"   
"If you insist."    
  
And then Skulduggery took an old fashioned revolver from his jacket and fired, the gun bucking slightly with the recoil. The bullet hit the man in the shoulder and he screamed, then tried to run and tripped. He scrambled for the doorway, ducking and dodging lest he get shot again, the flames obscuring his vision so much that he hit that wall on his way out.   
Then he was gone.   
We stared, well Steph did, at the door, she seemed to be trying to make sense of the impossible, my grin just widened at the prospect of finally being able to tell Steph the truth.    
"Well," Skulduggery said, "that's something you don't see every day."   
I snorted and we turned around. When his hat came off, his hair had come off too. In the confusion all we had seen was a chalk-white scalp, so we turned expecting to see a bald albino maybe. But no. With his sunglasses gone and his scarf hanging down, there was no denying the fact that he had no flesh, he had no skin, he had no eyes and he had no face.   
All he had was a skull for a head.


	4. The Secret War

Third Person Pov 

  
Skulduggery put his gun away and walked to the hall. He peered out into the night. Satisfied that there were no human fireballs lurking anywhere nearby, he came back inside and picked the door off the ground, grunting with the effort. He manoeuvred it back to where it belonged, leaving it leaning in the doorway, then he shrugged and came back into the living room, where Stephanie and Azula were still standing and staring at him.   
" Sorry about the door," he said.   
Stephanie stared, while Azula moved to sit on the couch.   
"I'll pay to get it fixed."    
Stephanie stared and her sister rolled her eyes, not speaking.   
"It's a good door, you know. Sturdy."    
  
When he realised Stephanie was in no condition to do anything but stare and that Azula wasn't going to say anything, he shrugged again and took off his coat, folded in neatly and draped it over the back of the chair. He went to the broken window and started picking up the shards of glass.   
Now that he didn't have his coat on, Stephanie and Azula could truly appreciate how thin he really was. His suit, well-tailored though it was, hung off him, giving him a shapeless quality. They watched him collect the broken glass and saw a flash of bone between his shirtsleeve and glove. He stood, looking back at them.   
"Where should I put all this glass?"    
"I don't know," Stephanie said in a quiet voice. "You’re a skeleton."    
"I am indeed," he said. "Gordon used to keep a wheelie bin out at the back door. Shall I put it in that?"   
Stephanie and Azula nodded. "Yes OK," they said in sync and watched Skulduggery carry the armful of glass shards out of the room. All their life Stephanie and Azula had longed for something else, well more Steph than Azula, for something to take them out of the humdrum world they knew - and now that it looked like it might actually happen, they didn't have one clue what to do. Questions were tripping through Stephanie's head, each one vying to be the one that was asked first. So many of them.   
Skulduggery came back in and Stephanie asked the first question.   
"Did you find it alright?"    
"I did, yes. It was where he always kept it."   
"OK then." If questions were people Stephanie felt that they'd all be staring at her now in disbelief. She seemed to struggle to form coherent thoughts.   
"Did you tell him your names?" Skulduggery was asking    
"What?" Stephanie said   
"No!" Azula yelped   
"Your name. Did you tell him?"   
"Uh, no..." Stephanie trailed off   
"Good. You know someone's true name, you have power over it. But even a given name, Stephanie or Azula, that would have been enough to do it"    
"To do what?"    
"To give someone influence over you. to get you to do what he asked. If he had either of your names and he knew what to do with them, sometimes that's all it takes. That's a scary thought now, isn't it?"   
"What's going on?" Stephanie asked. "Who was he? What did he want? Just who are you?"   
"I'm me," Skulduggery said picking up his hat and wig and placing them in a nearby table. "As for him, I don't know who he is, never seen him before in my life."    
"You shot him."    
"That's right."   
"And you threw fire at him."    
"Yes, I did."   
Stephanie's legs felt weak and her head felt light, Azula looked at her sister in worry.   
"Mr Pleasant, you're a skeleton."   
"Ah, yes, back to the crux of the matter. Yes, I am, as you say, a skeleton. I have been for a few years now."   
"Am I going mad?"    
"I hope not."   
So you're real? You actually exist?"    
"Presumably."   
"You mean you're not sure if you exist or not?" Azula snickered    
"I fairly certain. I mean, I could be wrong. I could be some ghastly hallucination, a figment of my imagination."    
"You might be a figment of your own imagination?" Azula was now laughing on the couch, holding her stomach, finding the whole ordeal amazingly funny.   
"Stranger things have happened. And do, with alarming regularity."    
"This is too weird."    
  
Skulduggery put his gloved hands in his pockets and cocked his head. He had no eyeballs so it was head to tell if he was looking at her or not. "You know, I met your uncle under similar circumstances. Well, kind of similar. But he was drunk. And we were in a bar. And he vomited on my shoes. So I suppose the actual circumstances aren't  **_overly_ ** similar, but both events include a meeting so... My point is, he was having some trouble and I was there to lend a hand, and we became good friends after that. Good, good friends." His head tilted. "You look like you might faint."    
Stephanie nodded slowly. "I've never fainted before, but I think you might be right."   
"Do you want me to catch you if you fall or...?"   
"If you wouldn't mind."    
"No problem at all."   
"Thank you."    
Stephanie gave him a weak smile and then darkness clouded her vision and she felt herself falling and the last thing she saw was Skulduggery Pleasant darting across the room towards her and her sister's worried face.    
  
Azula Pov   
  
I was on the couch laughing, holding my stomach at the hilarious conversation between Skulduggery and Stephanie. I stopped laughing when Skulduggery said that Stephanie looked like she might faint;   
Stephanie nodded slowly. "I've never fainted before, but I think you might be right."   
"Do you want me to catch you if you fall or...?"   
"If you wouldn't mind."    
"No problem at all."   
"Thank you."    
I stood up and rushed to Stephanie's side as she fainted and Skulduggery caught her. He picked her up and placed her on the couch, and covered her with a blanket, he looked at me as he stood up.   
"You’re not going to faint are you?"    
"No," I told him, picking up my fedora and put it on my head, "Come on, we'd better tidy up a bit."   
  
Skulduggery began to help me tidy up, we found some pieces of wood and he began to put them over the broken window. We talked as he worked.   
"So you’re not surprised?"    
"Surprised? Oh! You mean about the magic? Yea, I'm not surprised, I've known about magic since I was five and learnt that I could do it at age seven, from then on, I started doing martial arts and things to keep me fit. Gordon was the one who found out I could do magic." We moved onto the door and before we could continue talking until Stephanie came in.   
"Ah, you're up."   
"You fixed the window."    
"Well covered it up. Gordon had a few pieces of timber out back, so I-" I interrupted Skulduggery with a glare. "- Sorry, we did what we could. Not having the same luck with the door though. I find it much easier to blast them off then put them back. How are you feeling?"   
"I'm OK," Steph said   
"A cup of hot tea, that's what you both need. Lots of sugar."    
  
Skulduggery abandoned the door and guided us to the kitchen. We sat at the table while he boiled the water.   
"Hungry?" he asked when it had boiled, but we shook our heads.   
"Milk?" We nodded. He added milk and spoonfuls of sugar, gave the tea a quick stir and put the cup on the table in front of us. We took a sip - it was hot but nice.   
"Thank you," Stephanie said, and Skulduggery gave a little shrug. It was discomforting some of his gestures without a face to go by, but Steph seemed to think the shrug meant "think nothing of it".    
"Was that magic? With the fire, and blasting the door?"   
"Yes, it was," I said, leaning back.   
Stephanie peered closer at Skulduggery. "How can you talk?"    
"Sorry?" He asked   
"How can you talk? You move your mouth when you speak, but you've got no tongue, you've got no lips, you've got no vocal cords. I mean, we know what skeletons look like, we've seen models and stuff, and the only things that hold them together are flesh and skin and ligaments, so why don't you just fall apart?"    
He gave another shrug, both shoulders this time. "Well. that's magic too."    
She looked at him. "Magic's pretty handy."    
"Yes, magic is."    
"And what about, you know, nerve endings? Can you feel pain?"   
"I can, but that's not a bad thing. Pain lets you know when you're alive, after all."    
"And  **_are_ ** you alive?" I facepalmed causing Steph to look at me.   
"Well,  **_technically_ ** , no, but..."    
Stephanie peered into his empty eye sockets. "Do you have a brain?"    
He laughed. "I don't have a brain, I don't have any organs, but I have a consciousness." He started clearing away the sugar and the milk. "To be honest with you, it's not even  **_my_ ** head."    
" What?!" Steph and I said at the same time   
"It's not. They ran away with my skull. I won this one in a poker game."   
"That's not even yours? How does it feel?" I asked   
"It'll do. I'll do until I finally get around to getting my own head back. You look faintly disgusted."   
"I just... Doesn't it feel weird? It'd be like wearing someone else's socks."    
"What happened to you?" Stephanie asked, "Were you born like this?"    
"No, I was perfectly normal. Skin organs, the whole shebang. Even had a face that wasn't too bad to look at, if I do say so myself."   
"So what happened?"   
  
Skulduggery leaned up against the worktop, arms folded across his chest. "I got into magic. Back then -- back when I was, for want of a better term, alive -- there were some pretty nasty people around. The world was seeing a darkness it might have never recovered from. It was a war, you see. A secret war, but a war nonetheless. There was a sorcerer, Mevolent, worse than any of the others, and he had himself an army, and those of us who refused to fall behind him found ourselves standing up against him.   
"And we were winning. Eventually, after years of fighting this little war of ours, we were actually winning. His support was crumbling, his influence was fading, and he was staring defeat in the face. So he ordered one last, desperate strike against all the leaders on our side."   
Stephanie and I stared at him, lost in his voice.   
"I went up against his right-hand man who laid out a wickedly exquisite trap. I didn't suspect a thing until it was too late.   
"So I died. He killed me. The twenty-third of October it was when my heart stopped beating. Once I was dead, they stuck my body upon a pike and burned it for all to see. They used me as a warning -- they used the bodies of all the leaders they had killed as warnings -- and, to my utter horror, it worked."   
"What do you mean?"   
"The tide turned. Our side started losing. Mevolent got stronger. It was more than I could stand, so I came back."   
You just...  **_came back_ ** ?"   
"It's... complicated. When I died, I never moved on. Something was holding me here, making me watch. I've never heard of it happening before that and I haven't heard of it happening since, but it happened to me. So when it got too much I woke up, a bag of bones. Literally. They had gathered up my bones and put them in a bag and thrown the bag into a river. So that was a marvellous experience right there."   
"Then what happened?"    
"I put myself back together, which was rather painful, then climbed out of the river and rejoined the fight, and in the end, we won. We finally won. So with Mevolent defeated, I quit that whole scene and struck out on my own for the first time in a few hundred years."   
Stephanie and I blinked "Few  **_hundred_ ** ?"    
"It was a long war."   
"That man, he called you detective"   
"He obviously knows me by reputation," Skulduggery said, standing a little straighter. "I solve mysteries now."   
"Really?"    
"Quite good and it too."   
"So, what, you’re tracking down your head?"    
Skulduggery looked at us. If he had eyelids, he might well be blinking. "It'd be nice to have it back, sure..."    
"So you don't need it, like, so you can rest in peace?"    
"No. Not really."    
Why did they take it? Was that another warning?"    
"Oh, no," Skulduggery said with a little laugh. "No,  **_they_ ** __ didn't take it. I was sleeping about ten or fifteen years ago, and these little goblin things ran up and nicked it right off my spinal column. Didn't notice it was gone till the next morning."    
Steph and I frowned. " And you didn't feel that?"    
"Well, like I said I was asleep. Meditating, I suppose you'd call it. I can't see, hear or feel anything when I'm meditating. Have you tried it?"    
"No."    
"It's very relaxing. I think you'd like it."   
"I'm sorry, I think she's still stuck on you losing your head," I said pointing to Stephanie   
"I didn't  **_lose_ ** it," He said defensively "It was stolen."    
I looked at Stephanie and saw that she looked stronger. I couldn't believe that she'd fainted. It was such an old women thing to do. I glanced up at Skulduggery. "You've had a very unusual life, haven't you?"    
"I suppose I have. Not over yet though. Well,  **_technically_ ** __ it is, but..."    
"Isn't there anything you miss?" Steph asked   
"About what?"    
"About living."    
"Compared to how long I've been living like this, I was only technically alive for a blink of an eye. I can't really remember enough about having a beating heart in my chest to miss it."    
"so there's nothing you miss?"    
"I... I suppose I miss hair. I miss how it... was. And how it was there, on top of my head. I suppose I miss my hair" He took out his pocket watch and his head jerked back. "Wow look at the time. I've got to go, Stephanie, Azula."    
"Go? Go where?"    
"Things to do I'm afraid. Number one is finding out why that nice gentleman was sent here, and number two is finding out who sent him."    
"You can't leave us alone," Steph said, dragging me along as she followed him into the living room.    
"Yes," he corrected "I can. You'll be perfectly safe."   
"The front door's off!"    
"Well, yes. You'll be perfectly safe as long as they don't come through the front door."   
  
He pulled on his coat but Steph snatched his hat away, I sighed, knowing what was about to happen.   
" Are you taking my hat hostage?" Skulduggery asked doubtfully.   
"You're either staying here to make sure no one else attacks us or you're taking us with you."   
Skulduggery froze. "That," he said eventually, "wouldn't be too safe for you. You're sister maybe, but you? No."    
"Neither would being left here on our own."    
"But you can hide," he said, gesturing around the room. "There are so many places to hide. I'm sure there are plenty of good solid wardrobes your size. Even under a bed. You'd be surprised how many people don't check under beds these days."    
"Mr Pleasant-"   
"Skulduggery, please."   
"Skulduggery, you saved mine and my sister's life tonight. Are you going to undo all that effort by leaving us here so someone else can come along and kill us?"    
"That's a very defeatist attitude you've got there. I once knew a fellow, a little older than you. He wanted to join me in my adventures, wanted to solve mysteries that beggared belief. He kept asking, kept on at me about it. He finally proved himself, after a long time, and we became partners."   
And did you go on to have lots of exciting adventures?"   
"I did. He didn't. He died on our very first case together. Horrible death. Messy too. Lots of flailing around."   
"Well, I don't plan on dying any time soon and I've got something he didn't."   
"And that is...?"   
"Your hat. And Azula. Take us with you or I'll stand on your hat."   
Skulduggery looked at us with his big hollow eye sockets, then held out his hand for his hat. "Don't say I didn't warn you."


End file.
